I’m not sure why companies wait until right after Christmas to announce all kinds of new gadgets but whatever. Here’s a cool one for you farm podcasters out there. I have an older Olympus digital audio recorder and you’ve listened to a lot of audio that Cindy and I have recorded on it. This one looks pretty good at first glance. The one pictured here is the Olympus DS-50.

Olympus unveils three new DS-Series digital voice recorders that bridge the gap between work and play. In addition to capturing audio of meetings, interviews and other critical information expected of digital recorders, the new Olympus DS-30, DS-40 and DS-50 are optimized for downloading, listening to and creating podcasts. The new recorders’ high sound quality is also great for listening to audio books and music, making them the all-in-one audio device.

Software included with the devices makes downloading podcasts easy, and the podcasts’ contents are updated automatically each time the audio recorder is connected to or “synchronized” with a computer. Podcasts and other audio content can be downloaded from any Web site. The new voice recorders are also specifically designed to work with Audible.com, a leading online provider of audio books and other spoken entertainment and information.

The price on these is very attractive too. They range from $149 to $249. I think the smallest one is plenty for what most farm podcasters would need.

Via Podcasting News.